July 13th, 2011
This is your captain speaking. Welcome to my blog and thanks
for choosing MegBeck. Make sure your seat belts are securely fastened and
follow along as I take you from sentence to sentence of my most overwhelming
day at an airport, or several airports rather. You shall arrive at your destination
in about eight minutes, give or take turbulence; we’ll call it reading skills. For
safety purposes please keep your seat-backs and tray tables locked and in the
upright position. In case of emergency, I do not provide oxygen masks,
obviously.
Ready? Now, let’s embark on a journey. For the sake of time,
(I’m sure you’re all very busy people) let’s skip my three and a half hour
drive to the airport, because that just involves heavy eyes, a cup of coffee
and a lot of car singing. So, there I was at Omaha’s, Eppley Airfield, and
honestly, I should have known the moment security had to take my bag aside to
remove my illegal, six-ounce, deadly bottle of face wash, to throw it in the
trash can right in front of my face, that maybe my day was not going to go
according to plan. But I shook it off, sincerely told the lady to have a nice
day and proceeded to my gate where I sat down and pulled out the book I’m
reading on how to be successful. This book makes me feel good whenever I think
about the fact that I just spent five years getting a degree and can’t find a
job. Anyway, about two minutes later I ended up on Facebook updating my status
because I’m sure everyone was just dying to know what I was doing at noon on a
Tuesday.
So an hour later I boarded the plane, found my seat, buckled
my seatbelt, pulled out my feel good book and began reading. Thirty eight
seconds later a woman asked me if I would trade seats with her so she could sit
by her little boy. Not a problem. The move was an upgrade; I was ecstatic to
have an aisle seat because for a tall girl that means legroom. I was feeling pretty
good about the switch, when I looked to my right and saw a very small woman
sitting across the isle from me, (by small I don’t mean short but arms of
toothpicks). She couldn’t have been too much older than myself, mid-twenties, with
what looked to be a little one year old cheerio eater. Ah. He was a cute one,
with a head full of hair and dimpled cheeks. I watched him awkwardly shove the
cheerios in his mouth, sticking his entire hand in for just one cheerio. I
thought nothing of it really, so I smiled and got on with my reading. It’s not
like I had never seen a baby on an airplane before.
Some fifteen minutes later the captain came on the loud
speaker to announce there were some problems with the plane and they needed to
do some repairing before taking off. Comforting. It didn’t surprise me; I have
spent two hours sitting on a runway before so how bad could it be? I continued
reading and began to notice that cheerio boy was starting to get a bit fussy to
my right. His mother, who could have probably hoola hooped the cheerios he was
eating, stood up and began to walk around the cabin with him to try and calm
him down. An hour later we were finally ready for take off. The woman had
successfully walked the boy to sleep and decided it was safe to sit down.
Suddenly, cheerio boy woke up and began to make noises that made me wish I had
volume control on my ears. A tantrum was evolving. At first I went on reading
my book like nothing was happening but with peripheral vision and a good set of
ears I couldn’t help but become fidgety myself, listening to the tornado siren
next to me. I watched as the woman fought and struggled with the cheerio boy; he
screamed and grunted and threw his head back on her chest like he was suffering
the worst of a seizure. This battle,
that needed to be resolved with a continued nap, went on for about fifteen or
twenty minutes. My right ear felt as though I had fired several shots from a
rifle and cheerio boy and his mom were becoming awfully sweaty.
Finally a lady behind me stood up and said, “Honey, let me
take him for a bit and give you a break.” Without hesitation, toothpick mom
handed her child over to the stranger and guzzled down a bottle of water with
tears in her eyes. Cheerio boy’s screams only became worse and this went on for
another ten minutes before the stranger gave up and gave the boy back. As soon
as toothpick mom had her son back in her arms again he immediately became
silent. Note to all mothers with babies: If your child is throwing a tantrum
that you can’t seem to resolve, hand him to a stranger and then he will have
something to cry about.
So after a failed attempt to read my book, I finally landed
in Chicago where my next flight would take off in a little over an hour. Only
one problem, my next flight wasn’t going to be taking off at all. Cancelled. So
I ran to the customer service line to ask them to help me find a new flight, but
so did forty other people in front of me. I’m not really a fan of standing in
lines, but people watching makes it bearable. Thirty minutes later I made it to
the front desk. I told the man behind the counter my situation and he replied
without even making eye contact, “So what?” I’m thinking to myself as I looked
at the extremely overweight man, going bald, “What has gone so wrong in your
life, that you would talk to me like that?” I knew I had two choices at this
moment. I could get mad or get friendly. Getting annoyed, as I sometimes do, is
quite a turnoff to people, and in my experience has never really helped me in
life. So I got friendly of course. This strategy backfired on me however,
because in my attempt to kill him with kindness I ended up hearing that he had
a son who was my age that played baseball and could throw a 93 mph fastball. He
was telling me how he was going to make it to the pros and blah blah blah, when
the lady beside him said, “Dude she don’t care about all that, she just wants
to get on a plane! Help the poor girl out.” Then she started telling me she
also has a son that’s my age who is playing college football and trying to get
into the NFL. So I left the customer service desk with two possible prospects
for husbands and no plane ticket. The best they could do was put me on standby.
In the mean time my aunt and uncle had called United
Airlines to try and work their magic. They had success. I was rebooked to
Milwaukee. Only one problem, the plane was leaving in about forty minutes and I
still had to get to my gate, which happened to be on the other side of the
airport, and then print off my new ticket. It was a zoo. As I weaved in and out
of zebras, monkeys and elephants I began to panic; I just had to make this
flight. I finally reached my gate but surprise, surprise, there was a line to
the help desk. I looked at the screen and it read, “Milwaukee, boarding in ten
minutes”. I made it to the front of the line just as everyone started boarding.
I grabbed my ticket, ran on the plane, or in this case, the puddle jumper, and
prepared myself for a twenty-five minute flight to Milwaukee.
After I arrived to Milwaukee, I went to the first desk I
could find and asked them to print me off a ticket to DC. The lady looked up my
flight information and told me that I was switched from United to Frontier and
needed to go talk to Frontier for a ticket. This meant that I had to go all the
way back to the check-in counter at Frontier to get a new ticket. How
convenient. Because now my next flight was going to be leaving in an hour and I
had to go back, re-check in and go through security for a second time, then run
through a zoo to find my gate. Life is good. Let me just say again, from my
experiences, people at airports really act like they hate their jobs. Miss
Frontier lady was very unfriendly. But after many exchanged dirty looks I
received my new ticket and jetted up to security where I was greeted by a man
who checked my license and told me he liked me better with my hair down. “Gee,
thanks. I like myself better when I’m not stressed about airports sir, but your
compliment or your attempt to give me a compliment just might help me make it
through the day”.
I finally reached my gate, sweating, heart pounding, ready
for the madness to end, when I found out that my flight was delayed an hour and
a half. I love flying. This was where I really wanted to hit up a bar in the airport
and blow thirty dollars getting drunk, or go find the nearest McDonalds and
comfort myself with a burger, fries and large Dr. Pepper. Instead, I went and
bought a salad and an orange juice, and sat down by the window, turned on my
iTunes and watched the sunset, telling myself airports are all out of my
control.
And two hours later I was finally on my way to DC. The crew on
the plane felt bad for us so they came by and brought us cookies and milk and
let us watch cable for free. This was almost worth it. Warm chocolate chip
cookies compare to nothing else in this world. So I watched an episode of
Intervention and Hoarders and thought again to myself, okay, yes life is good.
I landed in DC at 12:30am, a little over 12 hours after arriving in Omaha. My
uncle picked me up and we drove back to his house. Finally. Bed. It was 1:30am.
The next morning a boy in a red and yellow space suit with
goggles greeted me at my bedside. “It’s time to wake up,” he said. “What are
you wearing?”, I asked my soon to be eight year old cousin. “I’m a jet pack
flyer”, he claimed, “And I’ve flown here to wake you up for breakfast.”
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